Worship Notes:

God Is Here:

In the Order of Confession and Forgiveness

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A second century text, the Didache, gives this advice: “Assemble on the day of the Lord, break bread and celebrate the Eucharist; but first confess your sins, that your sacrifice may be holy.” The brief order used at the beginning of our service comes from the medieval Confiteor (con×FEE×tay×or; Latin for “I confess”). It began as a private prayer used by a priest to prepare for the Service of Communion. Congregation members were expected to do something similar on their own. Eventually, many in their private confessions used the Confiteor with the priest, who would often follow it with a blessing called an Indulgentiam (in×dul×JEN×tsee×ahm, i.e.: “The almighty and merciful Lord grant you pardon, absolution, and remission of your sins.”).

Martin Luther attacked attempts to make the people worthy of communion through private confessions. He wrote: “Private confession before communion…neither is necessary nor should be demanded…. For the best preparation is—as I have said—a soul troubled by sins, death, and temptation and hungering and thirsting for healing and strength.” And in another place: “One is truly worthy and well prepared who believes these words: ‘for you’ and ‘for the forgiveness of sins.’”

However, Lutherans retained a corporate order for forgiveness, spoken together before the Service of Communion. It does not “make one worthy” to receive the sacrament, but proclaims and restates the forgiveness first given at baptism. It is a moment before a worship service where we are called to be conscious that we need God’s help, his grace and forgiveness, and his guidance. It opens us to the presence of God to hear the words and forgiveness that he offers throughout our worship services.

The power of this Order was brought home to me by one of my seminary friends. It was his conversion experience. He had been an off-Broadway actor who hadn't gone to church in years. He felt separated by time and guilt.

Finally—after being invited, and feeling the need for ...something—he went into a Lutheran church. They began with the Confession and Forgiveness. That morning the words in those first sentences hit him like daggers of truth. "We are in bondage... We have sinned ...thought, word and deed ...we have done...we have left undone. We have not loved." The weight of years, the guilt, and the separation all surfaced for him. For that moment, he felt exposed to the presence of Almighty God.

And then the pastor faced the congregation, faced him, saying that bold declaration: "As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by his authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins." Wow: years and guilt, by Christ's authority were entirely forgiven! He was converted. The next time you hear that God forgives you, listen to the words the way my friend did. You are confronted; exposed to the presence of Almighty God, but entirely forgiven.

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